Publishing News Roundup Series: Amazon Platform Glitch Removes Authors Books
by Maureen Crisp • December 3, 2018 • Follow
Published in News • No comments
You have your book ready to go and its published and selling. Then-nothing.
This nothing is attributed to the fact that your books are now missing from Amazon’s platform! What do you do? How can you continue to market yourself and find sales channels without wholeheartedly relying on one platform for sales?
Publishing news with camels
Pic The Library Camel of the Gobi Desert./imgur pic I couldn’t resist… you can check out Green Eggs and Ham in the Gobi. Theodore would be tickled pink over that!
Around the publishing blogosphere this week…
It’s been a busy old week in publishing. Authors outside the U.S woke up to find their books had vanished into a desert. They were not on the Amazon platform. Frantic calls from around the world perplexed the call centre. ‘We can see them fine here, stop worrying little author, it’s a glitch. It will sort itself.’
Authors talk to each other. (Odd, I know.) When the author community found out the problem wasn’t being fixed and wasn’t isolated geographically the screams were heard around the world. The heavy hitters in the Indie community called their Amazon Reps. Amazon is on it… so they say….
While Amazon was feeling the wrath of the authors…on the other side of the business, the booksellers were spitting like camels over changes to the Used and Rare book section. Suddenly booksellers were pulling their catalogues from ABE Books (rare and out of print booksellers owned by Amazon.) The issue was one of justice to the small bookshops in Africa. And Amazon caved.
Meanwhile, the publishing community is looking sideways at new conventions proposed by the EU and South Africa. Plan S has many worried about I.P. and how much it will count when changes are made to the ‘Fair Use’ guidelines. The accepted practice is restricted to Research, News, Teaching, Parody and only a limited amount at that. Publishers are already warning South Africa that their changes could contravene the Berne Convention.
While the publishers get set to fight for their IP rights there is another crisis looming. The shortage of paper is driving up the price of print. This could be another straw on the printed book camel.
The Atlantic has an in-depth article on a rags to riches writer story that is a bit different. It was kick-started on Wattpad, written on a mobile phone at the supermarket, uploaded for free and then…
Public Service Announcement: If you have published on Createspace you may want to check your accounts. Hackers have got in.
Smashwords have been quietly working at things in the background while being a large distributor of Ebooks in the foreground. This week Founder and CEO Mark Coker unveiled the new Smashwords storefront. It has some nifty bells and whistles and Mark stresses that they will never game the recommendations. (Which makes a nice change from other store fronts.)
Last week I was a virtual fly on the wall at a huge conference in Las Vegas. Meanwhile, Joanna Penn was attending the Independent Author conference. She shares her takeaways and lessons learned from this dynamic conference. Even if you are traditionally published, have an agent… etc. etc… it pays to keep an eye on the indie author world. Often they are responding to changes much faster than traditional publishers. Forewarned is always a good thing.
In The Craft Section,
4 fool proof ways to be a prolific and successful writer– Writers in the Storm
Using tips from poetry to strengthen prose– Pamela Donison- guest post on Jami Gold’s blog- Bookmark
Resources for NaNoWriMo
Character types– Go Into The story
In The Marketing Section,
5 tips for marketing books with a free excerpt– Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark
To Finish,
The weird things people say to authors and what you can say in reply. This post strikes a chord with every writer I know. As we come up to the holiday season and the Christmas party round is about to begin. Store up some of these comebacks for the inevitable clueless questions from family and acquaintances.
I am guest posting over at Jami Gold’s blog this week if you want to drop in and read an article on leveling up your writing.
Maureen
@craicer
About Maureen Crisp
Maureen Crisp has been writing her weekly publishing roundups for over seven years. She is a traditionally published children's author as well as indie-published. She lives in New Zealand and is heading the team organising the 4th National Conference of Children's Writers and Illustrators. She is currently trying her hand at writing a children’s book series if she can drag herself away from forever tweaking her Mars novel or obsessing over space.